Virgil Exner reportedly described it as his favorite concept car and the epitome of his desire to make the most aerodynamic and scupltured cars possible, and early next year the Chrysler Diablo will come up for auction once again as part of Barrett-Jackson’s all-reserve Salon Collection.

Originally appearing as the Dart concept car in 1956, Chrysler stressed the importance of aerodynamics in its development, noting that ink blots driven by 200 MPH winds in a wind tunnel inspired its shape and that every aspect of its design – from the severely raked windshield down to the design of the engine compartment – was intended to reduce drag as much as possible. Built by Ghia from Exner’s designs on a 1956 Chrysler chassis stretched three inches, the Dart featured a dual-quad Chrysler 354-cu.in. Hemi V-8, pushbutton TorqueFlite automatic transmission, and seating for four under a retractable fastback-style hardtop roof. To maximize its investment, Chrysler decided to revamp the Dart for 1957, removing the roof entirely (the retractable portion of it didn’t work well, according to the Diablo’s current owner), reducing the height of the fins, installing a dual-quad 392-cu.in. Hemi, and repainting it red.

After the 1958 show season in the United States, Ghia then took the Diablo back to Europe to show it there. Its ownership chain remains somewhat murky between then and the late 1980s, when the current owner bought it, but it remained largely untouched, having been treated to just one repaint over those 30 years. It has since appeared at the 1990 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and in several prominent museums, including the Petersen, Gilmore, and Auburn Cord Duesenberg museums, and though it now displays less than 15,000 miles on its odometer, the current owner said it runs perfectly.

The Diablo did cross the block once previously – at the RM auction in Monterey in 2008 – but failed to meet its reserve, bidding up to $1.2 million. Barrett-Jackson, which will offer the Diablo at its Scottsdale auction, has not released a pre-auction estimate for it.

Very cool. It looks like it would be super unstable at high speed, though. Like it would start lifting the front wheels off of the ground. I could be (and, probably am) wrong. And, the definition of “severely-raked” to describe that windshield seems different from what we’d define that as today.

WHY CAN’T CHRYSLER GET OFF THEIR BUTT AND BUILD THIS VEHICLE TODAY INSTEAD OF THE POOR EXCUSE OF A DART THEY BUILT..WHAT A PIECE OF JUNK..THIS VEHICLE WOULD BE A HUGE HIT THROUGHOUT THE AUTO INDUSTRY!!!

Egads! With its weird tailfins, squished down body, and eclair-shaped snout, this thing looks like it was designed by committee. The Diablo gets my vote for ugliest of the concept cars. But I’m not a Mopar guy. Give me a GM concept car any day.

Hmmmm. Ownership “murky until the late 1980s”? When was this car profiled in SIA??? For some reason I seem to remember that being before the late 1980s. And didn’t Paul Stern own this car for quite a while?

And while the Dart version indeed seemed to have a very nice rake on the windshield…what is so “severely raked” about the very vertical-looking Diablo windshield? A 1959-60 Italian-built Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham (not the regular Fleetwood) …now THAT has a raked windshield! The original Dart was severely raked but that got trashed with the Diablo–as interesting as it may be. I was heartbroken when I saw the Diablo at a debut and realized they had merely just cut up the Dart.

But then, I felt the same way when they did the same thing again to the Yellow Jacket and cut it up to make the Diamante. Yes, I was there for the debut of both cars–the latter had a local Detroit jeweler posting guards and a display of what was supposed to be a million dollars in diamonds around the car (which supposedly had “diamond dust” in the paint)…so help me–that’s what they told us!

Paul did own the Diablo before the current owner.
After the sale, the Diablo was sent to a restoration shop Eastern Coach Restorations, Holbrook, Long Island. At that point a press release was published but it was wrong. A corrected story came out in a local magazine, Automobilia ( August 1983 ). At the time, the back story was still not complete but it was put on the right track.
There are a few photos of the Diablo in the shop.

My brother and I have owned the sister car to this since 1977, the 1958 Dual Ghia 400 concept. It is two tone yellow/black and 99% original. Photos are on google. Much of the body was built on the same wooden bucks as the Diablo also the front grillle surround/bumper and chrome side “bumpers”. I call them bumpers because they were intended to function as side intrusion protection like modern cars are mandated to have inside the doors. Made of the same heavy steel as the front and rear bumpers and mounted to the body sides in a channel so if it is struck moderately hard the side bumper will expand but the body will not be damaged.

The reference to the sharply raked windshield applies to the Diablo whose roof was so low that it was not realistic to drive. It was built to show how low a coefficient of drag it could have. The Diablo had a removable roof panel over the driver, the remaining roof asssembly then hinged down covering most of the back seat looking then much like a 62-3 TBird Sport Roadster. It was unweildy and water control was iffy.

For the 57 show season Chrysler made a “new” show car out of it called the Dart. The entire roof unit was cut off, a boot cover was made to make it look like there is a top unit below it which there isn;t. The fins were cut down and a more upright cowl/windshield was installed, drastically altering its slippery-sleek profile. If a 6′ tall person sat in the car with the raked windshield they would look over the windshield.

I could shed quite a bit of light on the ownership of the car. I actually got to drive this car when I was sixteen – it was owned by Jim Mooney of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was a large Chrysler stock holder and an avid car buff. He purchased the car in 1958/59 and he (actually his wife) was the one who renamed it the Diablo. The three crowns were swiped from Maserati because his wife, Artis, liked the look. Mooney installed the gold interior and the Persian lamb carpeting. Interesting fact is that Jim had double vision and couldn’t drive – his son Tom who was one of my close friends, drove the car occasionally to keep it in shape. I was privileged to drive it a few times too – pretty amazing for a sixteen year old! I have a lot of fond memories of the car. There are a few other errors in the history. Mooney had the rear fins cut down because he felt they detracted from the styling. They were originally higher for runs at Bonneville.